The National Question in the Indian Union and Pakistan

A.M. Dyakov

The following analysis of the national question in India and Pakistan is
part of a wider study undertaken by A.M. Dyakov on the political developments in
the sub-continent in the period 1939-1949 which was published by the Institute
of Orientalism of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1952. This essay
represents one of the major studies of the national question in the
sub-continent which were undertaken in the Soviet Union in the post-war period.
They are largely unknown in the democratic movement in India as, in common with
the bulk of the corpus of Soviet orientology dealing with India, they had not
been translated from the Russian. This study was sent to press in December 1951
not long after the concerted critique by the CPSU(b) of the right opportunist
errors in Soviet orientology which was undertaken in March and April of that
year (see RD Vol. VI, No. 2, September 2000, pp. 106-115) and was prefaced by the
author’s self-criticism. Within a few years the right opportunist errors made
a comeback so that the later studies by A.M. Dyakov on the national question in
India represent a reflection of the ideology of the 20th Congress of
the CPSU. From the standpoint of the democratic movement the analysis of the
national question in India has suffered from a double disability. Not only has
the Soviet scholarship on this not been accessible but also the impact of the 20th
Congress of the CPSU was such as to dash the developing possibilities of a
Marxist historical school being established in this country devoted to the study
of Indian history. The national question still remains a burning question in the
subcontinent and it is to be hoped that this analysis which was made an
half-century ago will prove to be of value to the contemporary democratic
movement.

Vijay Singh

The National Question in the Indian Union

In the newly founded dominions, the national question has
become one of the most serious problems. In the Indian Union and Pakistan the
reactionary bloc of landlords, princes and the monopolistic bourgeoisie has come
to power. Even during the direct rule of the British, the monopolistic groups of
the Indian bourgeoisie had managed to carve out a certain position for
themselves. Due to the specificities of the development of capitalism in India,
the large capitalist groupings of the country are far from being fully
representative of capitalists of all the nationalities of India. During the
initial period of development of capitalism, the most prominent section of the
national capital was the one that emerged from the comprador section of the
Bombay bourgeoisie and represented the capitalists from among the Indian
Gujaratis and the Parsis who had been practically assimilated with the Gujaratis.
A large portion of the textile industry not only in Gujarat but also in the city
of Bombay and also in the Marathi region of the Bombay Province and the Central
Province as well as in the Kannada areas of the Bombay Province was in the hands
of the mentioned group of capitalists.

After the First World War the capital of the Marwari moneylenders from
Rajasthan began to flow into the industrial sector. From the very early period
these moneylenders were active in the whole of northern India including Bengal
and reached as far as the Deccan right into the south to the Tamil areas, where
their expansion was brought to a halt by the rather strong Tamil usurer capital.

Almost all, with a few exceptions, monopolistic capitalist groups of Tata,
Birla, Dalmia, Singhania, Bhatt and others belonged to the ranks of Gujarati or
Marwari capital. Only in the Province of Madras, the Tamil capitalists and, in a
lesser measure, the Telugu, Kannada and the Malayali resisted this infiltration
of the monopolies from the North. These particular monopolies are most
intimately linked to the Indian princes and landlords and with the British
capital.

The monopolistic groups of Indian capitalists are interested in taking
control of the whole of the Indian market, and the fact that the Indian
capitalists belong largely to the trading and merchant castes of two national
groups of India even further strengthens the resistance of the peoples of India
for a more or less broad autonomy. Certainly, the Indian capitalists, with their
own interests in mind, were also against the division of India along religious
lines carried out by the British, supported the movement for a united (greater)
India and approved the division of the country only out of fear of a revolution.
They accepted the Mountbatten Plan only as a result of the refusal by the
British government to grant independence to India without a prior division of
the country.

Thus the National Congress, having found itself in power and as a
representative of the interests of these groups along with the landowners and
the princes refused to carry out its own national programme of 1920. The
establishment of the so-called provinces on the basis of language was
advantageous neither to the large capitalists nor to the princes and landlords.
The reason for this was that the Indian monopolists were afraid of the
competition from the weak national bourgeoisie of the Marathis, the Telugu,
Bengalis, Oriya, Kannada and others. The big Indian bourgeoisie, princes and the
landlords knew that in some of the ‘linguistic’ or in other words national
provinces, the social base of its agents — the leadership of the National
Congress — is narrow, as in these places the more democratic elements are
stronger and that they would not carry out policies according to the interests
of Tata, Birla and Co. A very strong peasant and national movement under the
leadership of the workers and a broad national autonomy in a number of such
provinces, doubtlessly, would create more favourable conditions here for the
intensification of anti-feudal struggle.

Therefore, the Indian government immediately on coming to power, set aside
the election manifesto of the National Congress published in 1945 and announced
that the creation of the so-called linguistic provinces will be postponed for at
least 10 years.

In July 1948, Rajendra Prasad, the chairman of the Constituent Assembly of
India, under the pressure of the national movement in the ‘linguistic’
provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala, instituted a commission
that was entrusted to study i.e. in reality bury the issue.

In December 1948, at the meeting of the National Congress in Jaipur, under
pressure from the delegates of the above mentioned regions of India, a
sub-committee was formed for examining the problem of ‘linguistic provinces'
i.e. of restructuring the administrative division of India.

As expected, the sub-committee, in its report tabled in April 1949, decided
the question of creation of national provinces in the negative. The
justification of the decision, in spite of its ‘diplomatic’ form, is
interesting as far as it reveals the real reason of the refusal of the
government to create ‘linguistic’ i.e. national provinces in India. The
sub-committee in its report pointed out that the earlier policy of the National
Congress was in favour of creation of ‘linguistic’ provinces but it was
justified then, as at that stage the question of implementation of this
principle in practice was not on the agenda.1 The
sub-committee itself recognizes that the Congress programme was just simple
demagogy.

Further, the sub-committee states that the existing provinces of India,
despite their artificiality, on the strength of their long existence have
acquired a certain stability that makes the break-up of their borders
undesirable.2 This argument is interesting as it
literally repeats the worn-out conclusions of the incorrigible British
imperialist Coupland that were once directed against the National Congress.3
However, the sub-committee did not think this argument to be the central one.
The following were put forward as the main arguments against the creation of
national provinces:

The division of India in itself created separatist tendencies; the creation of
national provinces supposedly will strengthen these tendencies as in many
national regions ‘disruptive’ forces are at work;

The sub-committee recognizes that India has not been able to achieve economic
independence, but in order to preserve this limited (highlighted by me
– A.D.) independence it is necessary to consolidate India;

A language is not only a means of connecting, but also an obstacle dividing
one people from another and this should be kept in mind;

The creation of new provinces of Andhra, Kerala, Maharashtra and Karnataka
will result in the liquidation of number of princely states and this would be a
bad precedence as the problem of princely states is being addressed in other
ways. Thus a conclusion is made that the creation ‘linguistic’ provinces
should be postponed for at least 10 years.4

Herein the reasons for the government’s unwillingness and that of
leadership of the National Congress to restructure the administrative division
of India become absolutely clear.

The reactionary alliance of the landlords, princes and the monopolistic
groups is aware of the results that such a restructuring can lead to. The
sub-committee makes it adequately clear that in many of the regions disruptive
forces are at work i.e. there exists a strong peoples’ movement. It recognizes
that India is economically dependent on British imperialism and must take it
into account. From the arguments of the sub-committee it is clear that the
princes, landlords and large capitalists are not interested in the existence of
such provinces enjoying wide autonomy. Having come to power, they do not want
any development for the people of India and are striving to enslave them. They
also do not want the liquidation of feudal princely states.

A short while before the announcement of these conclusions the union of the
princely states of Travancore and Cochin was accomplished. For this occasion a
celebratory meeting was held in the capital of Travancore, which was attended by
Sitaramaiya, chairman of the National Congress. A decision was taken here for
creating a united Kerala by including the Malabar district of the province of
Madras5 in the above-mentioned united princely
state. Sitaramaiya never protested against such a union. But the masses of
Malabar and the two princely states brought out demonstrations against such a
union and demanded the creation of a united Kerala by liquidating the princely
states.6

The Indian princes and the large landlords fully and completely support the
national policy of the government. The creation of ‘linguistic’ provinces,
inevitably, will threaten the continuation of princely states. Thus, the princes
strongly oppose the implementation of these measures.

Not being satisfied with rejecting the old Congress programme, the
Constituent Assembly of India accepted the American Constitution as the model
for the Constitution of India by according the President extraordinary powers
and right to remove the governors of the provinces, thereby reducing to nothing
the autonomy of the provinces of India.

The fact that the large majority of big Indian concerns, monopolistic
companies and banks belong primarily to the Gujarati and Marwari capital and
that the big capitalists of India are by nationality Gujaratis and Marwaris,
should not lead us to the conclusion that these elements are carriers of
Gujarati and Marwari nationalism. On the contrary, they are cold towards the
national interests of the Gujaratis and the Marwaris. Even in 1917, while
speaking at the Gujarat conference on education, where the representatives of
the Gujarati capitalists, intelligentsia and the landlords were present, Gandhi
chided them for their lack of interest towards the advancement of the national
culture of Gujarat and the Gujarati language and cited the example of the Telugu
as patriots of their national culture. This speech is particularly interesting
as Gandhi himself always propagated Hindi as the common Indian language.
However, even for him the nihilism and indifference towards the destiny of their
own people, which the Gujarati bourgeoisie demonstrated even in 1917 appeared to
be extreme and capable of getting in the way of sustaining their influence among
the masses.

The Marwari capitalists are even more indifferent towards the interests of
the people of Rajasthan. By being very closely linked to the princes and the
jagirdars of Rajputana, they are totally indifferent towards the well-being of
their people. The Marwari capitalists have not made any attempts at reviving the
literature in the various dialects of Rajasthan, even in the Marwari language.

Big capital, particularly monopoly capital, is by nature cosmopolitan. The
capitalists of Gujarat and Marwar are typically cosmopolitan both in their
domestic as well as in international politics.

The Gujaratis and the Marwaris are among those Indian peoples who are
suffering more than others due to remnants of feudalism and feudal division of
the territory among hundreds of princely states. Such a situation acts as an
extreme hindrance for their cultural and economic development. If Gujarat,
largely, is among the economically advanced regions of India, then Rajasthan
and, in particular, Marwar, are among the most backward. The interests of the
large Gujarati and Marwari capitalists lie in the industrial territories that
are situated outside of Gujarat and Marwar. Bombay is the base of Gujarati
capital. Marwari capital, in the full sense of the word, is cosmopolitan. Being
interested in strengthening their positions in the internal market of India, the
big Gujarati and Marwari capitalists, as the large capitalists of other nations,
are supporters of maximum centralism. They are in favour of the Hindi language,
as it has already in some measure become a common Indian language in the sphere
of industry and commerce. They are not only not interested in the development of
individual national groups of India, but on the contrary, on fully
understandable ground, work against their development, oppose the creation of
national provinces in India, are against the development of national languages
and, obviously, are against regional autonomy and, more so, against the right of
the Indian peoples to self determination. This group of capitalists, in
particular, with great ease went along with the division of Punjab and Bengal,
as the destiny of the Punjabis and the Bengalis and the development of these
peoples are totally foreign to them.

Being pure ‘representatives of hard cash’ and being afraid, more than
anybody else, of a revolution in India that would inevitably cast them out of
existence, they are the ones most actively supporting close relations with
Britain and America as well as with international monopolies. In this sense they
have a great deal in common with the ‘bureaucratic capital' in China along with
the band of four Chinese families. They clamour for inviting foreign capital
into India; for converting India into a base for fighting against Communism;
they demand suppression of all democratic movements and as representatives of
monopolistic groups are interested in strengthening the politically regressive
situation and the vestiges of feudalism as well. Their alienation from the
majority of the Indian peoples, including their own peoples makes them, like the
princes, the most trusted allies and agents of British and American imperialism
in the process of enslavement of India.

Enunciating the interests of this particular group of Indian capitalists, the
leadership of the National Congress is toying with the chauvinistic idea of the
leading role of India in Asia, propagating the idea that India should take up,
in Asia, the place that has been left vacant as a consequence of the downfall of Japanese imperialism, but at the same time it is bending over backward for
the creation of an international federation under the umbrella of USA and
Britain while rejecting the struggle for the sovereignty of nations, in
particular, the sovereignty of India.

The government of the Indian Union, being the government of Indian
monopolists, landlords and princes has not only rejected the creation of the so-called linguistic provinces but has also initiated a policy of discrimination of
languages, and consequently, of the nationalities of India. In the newspapers of
the Unified Province of Bihar, in the publications of the Hindu Mahasabha all
over India the Hindi language is being publicized as a compulsory state
language. Already in 1948, in the legislative assembly in connection with the
discussion on the constitution, draft legislation was introduced proclaiming
Hindi and English as the state languages of India and only in exceptional cases
allowing the representatives of the provinces to speak in their mother tongue.
This draft generated anger even in the publications of the Congress of those
provinces where Hindi is neither the spoken nor the literary language. The
journal ‘Calcutta Review’7 severely
criticized this draft legislation and demanded that the languages of all the
provinces of India be proclaimed equal. This is how the Bengali nationalist
bourgeoisie reacted to this draft. Being scared and then having agreed to a
partition of Bengal the Bengali bourgeois nationalists recovered and began
demanding the inclusion into West Bengal of regions of Bihar, where the Bengalis
are in a majority as well also the ethnic groups of Santhals and Munda who are
supposedly closer to the Bengalis than to the Biharis or the Oriya. The Bengali
nationalists also demand the transfer of districts from Assam in which the
Bengalis predominate (Kachar, Lushai, Manipur and Tripura) and the creation of a
separate state of Purvanchal Pradesh constituting these districts.

In 1942 there were serious protests in the princely states of Khorsavan,
Saraikela and Mayurbhanj against the inclusion of these princely states in the
province of Orissa. These protests were led by the ‘Adivasi sangham’ i.e.
the ‘the Union of Aborigines’, who demanded the inclusion of these princely
states in the Chhota Nagpur district of Bihar.8

The Bengali nationalists demanded the inclusion of these princely states as
also the districts of Singhbhum, Birbhum, Santhal Pargana and Purnia in West
Bengal.

Particularly strong protests were provoked by the national policy of the
Indian government in the south of India.

The Indian government did not immediately decide to openly declare its final
refusal to fulfil the extremely popular, even among the bourgeois elements of a
number of nationalities of India, demand for the creation of the so-called
linguistic provinces and, in order to make this refusal easy for itself,
distributed in 1948 a questionnaire meant supposedly for preparation of the
administrative reforms. This questionnaire was so structured so as to guarantee
a clear negative response on the question of creation of ‘linguistic’
provinces. Thus, in the Congress dominated (‘linguistic’) provinces of
Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra the questionnaire was distributed, in
which different economic organizations and industrialists, mainly the Gujaratis
and the Marwaris were asked the question: can these provinces in case of
separation balance their budgets without running into deficit? On the contrary,
among the population in the Congress dominated provinces of Tamilnad and Gujarat
the questionnaire distributed asked the question: will the there be a positive
impact on the people of these provinces if Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka and
Maharashtra are separated from these provinces. It was presumed also that the
capitalists of Gujarat and Tamilnad would respond in the negative regarding the
impact of such a measure.

Characterizing these manoeuvres, the newspaper ‘People’s Age’ wrote:
‘The big bourgeoisie views the creation of new linguistic provinces of Andhra,
Karnataka and Maharashtra etc. as increasing the number of competitors i.e.
bourgeoisie of the respective districts pushing for the development of industry
and markets of these national regions and that is why the big bourgeoisie is
sabotaging the implementation of the given demand.

‘The leaders of the Congress and the bourgeoisie are even more afraid of
the peoples of these districts. They are afraid that with the creation of
separate provinces the radical and the democratic elements would considerably
strengthen their influence and the local leadership will not be always able to
counter them’.9

Further in the same article the newspaper ‘People’s Age’ points out that
the bourgeois leadership of the national organisations want to limit the
movement within the demands of the Congress programme and does not want to press
forward. Albeit, despite the vacillations and opportunism of this leadership,
the movement for the formation of the so-called linguistic provinces should be
supported. ‘The equality of national groups', the newspaper said, 'is one of the
founding principles of a genuinely democratic India and any movement on a course
towards it needs to be given support; should be supported because so that it
gets on a correct path in this direction. That is why we support the peoples’
demand proclaimed in Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra and in other linguistic
formations for the formation of separate provinces.’10

The Indian communists condemn the government policy of sabotaging the demands
of the overwhelming majority of the peoples of India as a policy of disruption
of its integrity: ‘Those who oppose the demand for self determination and
equality, those who reject the existence of nationalities in India are the worst
sort of destroyers and enemies of the integrity of India. They make it
impossible for the peoples of India to live together and do so on the basis of
equality. Obviously, the right to self determination and the real unity of India
can be provided only under peoples’ power’.11

The future of the cities of Bombay and Madras also provoked serious
discussions. As is well known, Bombay is situated in the territory of
Maharashtra and the Marathis form the bulk of the population. The majority of
workers, clerks and intellectuals of Bombay are Marathis but the Gujaratis
predominate among the industrialists, traders and bankers. There is also a
considerable number of Gujarati craftsmen, petty traders, intellectuals and
workers.

The Congress organization of Maharashtra demanded that Bombay be included in
the province of Maharashtra. The leadership of the Congress made it into a
special province – City of Bombay, neither a part of Maharashtra nor of
Gujarat. When the question of the creation of linguistic provinces surfaced, the
leadership of the Congress unit of Bombay, the strongest and most influential in
the country, put forward the demand that Bombay should be proclaimed a free city
without being included in any other province. On this grounds a serious quarrel
erupted between the Congress Committee of Bombay where the Gujarati and the
Parsi capitalists dominate and the Maharashtra Congress organization.

The Communists took the side of the Marathis in this debate as the workers of
Bombay are predominantly Marathis. In the above-mentioned edition of the
newspaper, ‘Peoples Age’, regarding this question, wrote: ‘We also support
the demand for the inclusion of the city of Bombay in Maharashtra, as Bombay is
a part of Maharashtra. Making Bombay into an autonomous province is being
proposed in order to placate the Gujarati and other capitalists. It would be
just as justified to make Calcutta an autonomous province for the sake of a few
Marwari capitalists. The Congress is pitting the Marathi population of Bombay
against the non-Marathis in the interests of the bourgeoisie.'12

The question of Madras was also projected by the Government of India as an
obstacle in creating the so-called linguistic provinces in south India.
Madras is located on the border of areas inhabited by the Tamils and the Telugu,
and both of them inhabit the city. On this basis the government announced that
the creation of autonomous provinces Tamilnad and Andhra will necessarily result
in making Madras into an autonomous province or a ‘free city’.13

The national movement in South India specially intensified in connection with
the destiny of Hyderabad. The Congress organization of this princely state, even
prior to the division of India, comprised of three national organizations –
the Andhra Conference, the Maharashtra Conference and the Conference of
Karnataka. At a time when the leadership of the Congress was struggling with
reforms in the princely state, the constituent national organizations were
moving towards the autonomy of the respective regions, and in the final
analysis, towards inclusion of these region into the provinces which were
inhabited by the same nationality which was not possible without the liquidation
of the princely state of Hyderabad.

According to the reports of the American journalist Andrew Rott, Padmaja
Naidu, one of the leading personalities from the Congress in the state said that
if the Congress party in the princely state supports the division of the state
into national regions, then the Nizam cannot stay in power; but the Congress
supposedly waited for a signal from Nehru.14 Apart
from this, the largest and the most influential section of the bourgeoisie of
the princely state, connected to the state enterprises and purchases by the
Nizam also did not want the division of the state. It is well known that Nehru
never gave the signal for the division as the Congress government rejected the
creation of linguistic provinces. But this does not mean that the movement for
their creation came to a halt. In the end of 1948 this movement became so
widespread that it became a threat to the unity of the Congress. The Andhra
Mahasabha, of which the Andhra Conference of Hyderabad is a constituent part,
expanded tremendously in the Congress-dominated province of Andhra. The Andhra
Mahasabha was under the strong influence of the communists and it supported the
rebellion in Telengana. This organization was created in 1911 and in the
beginning it was just a cultural and educational society in which the landlords
played the leading role. Only after the First World War and specially just
before the Second World War, when the movement for self determination of the
nationalities of India took on an intense and mass character, did the Mahasabha
begin to transform into a more democratic organization. The petty bourgeois
elements began to play the leading role in it and after the Second World War it
transformed into a predominantly peasant organization and the influence of the
communists grew. The National Congress of Andhra Pradesh became a narrow
bourgeois party and to a great extent lost its influence among the masses.

In 1945, i.e. during the period of elections to the Legislative Assembly of
Maharashtra the organization under the name of Maharashtra Conference was
established. Its leader was a little-known Marathi advocate. However when the
Indian government began to put brakes on the creation of linguistic provinces,
the Maharashtra Conference that had as its main aim the struggle for the
unification of all the Marathi districts of India into a unified province
strengthened its position among the Marathis. In the end of 1948, after the
occupation of Hyderabad by the Indian armed forces, this organization put
forward the demand of inclusion of a part of Hyderabad into a unified province
of Maharashtra.

From the 16 to 17 of October 1948 a session of the Maharashtra Conference was
held in Bombay at which the demand was put forward for the inclusion of all
Marathi lands in Maharashtra, both belonging to the Indian Union as well as
those forming a part of princely states. The Congress members also participated
in this Conference and tried to limit its influence and make the entry of
democratic forces into the organization more difficult. For this purpose they
proposed the entry payment to be 5 rupees and a yearly payment of 1 rupee. The
Conference rejected this demand and as a compromise set up the entry fee as 1
rupee.15

The Maharashtra Conference was even a more heterogeneous organization than
the Andhra Mahasabha. It included a large number of not only petty bourgeoisie
and petty bourgeois intellectuals but also Marathi bourgeoisie i.e. a variety of
petty capitalists of Poona and other towns of Maharashtra. On a number of issues
this organization supported the National Congress, however, on the question of
creation of linguistic provinces it stood in uncompromising opposition to the
policy of the Congress leadership and the Indian government.

In Kerala the local organizations of the Congress aligned themselves with the
princes of Travancore and Cochin. They supported the aspirations of the princes
to retain their power through unification of the Travancore and Cochin and the
establishment of the princely state of ‘Union of Kerala’.

The more democratic section split away from the Congress and established a
new party under the name of Socialist Party of Kerala. This party supported the
demand of the communists for the liquidation of the princely state and creation
of a unified and democratic Kerala, which would include both the Malayali
princely states, as well as the Malayali regions of the Madras province.16

In the north of the India the national movement did not have such a strong
presence as in the south. This is explained to a large extent by the fact that,
apart from the Bengalis and the Gujaratis, there are no such fully-formed
nations as in south India. In Gujarat the influence of the big bourgeoisie is
very strong and it is interested not so much about the cultural development or
the destiny of its nation as gaining control over the Indian market. That is why
it does not support the demand of making Gujarat into a separate province and of
unification of all Gujarati territories within its borders. But the movement for
the creation of a unified Gujarat, nonetheless, exists.17

The partitioning of Bengal between India and Pakistan was a big blow to the
national movement in Bengal. The mistrust between the Muslims and the Hindus
sown by the British was still too great for any organization to demand the
unification of Bengal either within the Indian Union or Pakistan. But the
yearning for unification exists as much in the Pakistan part of Bengal as in the
Indian. Thus, in August 1949, even Roy, the ex-Chief Minister of West Bengal,
whom the Bengali newspapers call the protégé of the Marwaris, declared that
there are substantial differences between the Bengali people and the Government
of India and that the Bengali people aspire for unification. Earlier Suhrawardy,
the ex-chief minister of Bengal before its partition, supported the unification
of Bengal within the borders of Pakistan. The declarations of these politicians
are interesting in the sense that they reflect the aspirations of the Bengali
people to achieve the unification of Bengal.

The immense scale of the national movement of the Telugu people forced the
government of India to declare its agreement to the creation of the province of
Andhra comprising of 11 districts from the Madras province in November 1949. But
in 1950 this decision was not implemented. In the new Constitution there is no
mention of this province.

In the Constitution of the Indian Union approved in January 1950, it is
stated that the Hindi language is the official language of India and for the
next 15 years English would also have the same status. More so, Article 343 of
the Constitution empowers the Indian government to ‘promote Hindi language and
develop it so that it becomes the means of expression of all the elements of the
complex culture of India’. Put simply, the Constitution of India is forcing
Hindi upon all the peoples of India and makes it compelling for the central
government to take measures to erode the role of other languages from the sphere
of State and public life. This article of the Constitution drew objections even
from among the ministers. Thus, Gadgil, a Marathi and minister for energy spoke
against as also S.P. Mukerjee a Bengali and the then minister of supply.

In the draft programme of the Communist Party of India the following
assessment of the national policy of the government of India is given: ‘the
partition of the country and the religious strife were used in order to drown
the demands of the various nationalities of India regarding their free
development and the transformation of the previously heterogeneous British
provinces and the princely states into autonomous in linguistic sense provinces
of Unified India. Under the pretext of the unifying the country, the language of
one province, specifically Hindi, was declared as the compulsory state language
for all the nationalities of State to the detriment of their own mother tongue.
Vast regions and millions of people of one nationality are forced to live under
the rule of bureaucrats and governments that are dominated by other
nationalities. Vast regions inhabited by tribals with their own economy and
cultures have been surrendered to landlords and financial sharks of one or the
other non-tribal group. In this way the aspiration of the masses for unity of
the country is being used in reality for sowing discord and disunity among the
people’.18

On the issue of the national question there are serious contradictions
between the monopolistic Indian bourgeoisie, landlords and princes, on the one
hand, and the mass of the population of the Indian Union including the
bourgeoisie of a number of nationalities, particularly the Telugu, Bengalis,
Kannada, Malayali and Marathi, on the other. At a time when the big bourgeoisie,
princes and the landlords are aspiring to transform the Indian Union into a
bureaucratic state and retain feudal princely states, the workers, peasants and
the national bourgeoisie choose the creation of linguistic i.e. national
provinces, in getting wide autonomy and liquidation of the princely states. At a
time when the central government and the leadership of the National Congress is
interested in retaining the princely states, is creating unions of princely
states and in retaining the powers of the princes as the stronghold of
reactionary forces in the country, the bourgeoisie of a number of nationalities
is supporting the demand of the workers and the peasants for the liquidation of
the princely states and the creation of unified national provinces embracing all
the territory of a given nationality. At a time when the central government and
the leadership of the National Congress aspire to preserve the
medieval-bureaucratic administrative division established by the British
colonizers, the working masses and the bourgeoisie of a number of nationalities
aspire towards its elimination and replacement by a division along national
lines.

In this manner, the bourgeoisie of a number of nationalities of India,
particularly the Telugu, Malayali, Kannada, Marathi, and the Bengali, in their
struggle against the reactionary national policy of the central government and
the leadership of the National Congress is, though not a very persistent, but
still an ally of the working masses and it should not be thrown out of reckoning
in spite of its weakness and indecisiveness. But this bourgeoisie is not the
main motive force of the national movements in India. The main core of these
movements is the peasantry that is much more than the bourgeoisie interested in
the complete liquidation of the feudal vestiges.

Precisely the scale of the peasant anti-feudal movement explains the
importance that the national question has gained after the partition of India.
The national movements of the peoples of India even before its partition were
anti-feudal and anti-imperialist in nature. But before 1945 bourgeois reformists
and even liberal landlords headed these movements. The movement was directed by
them on a reformist path, they moved not towards the liquidation of the princely
states and feudal land ownership but only towards reforms in these princely
states and towards creation of provinces on the basis of language. The actions
of the peasants, which in a number of areas were directed by the workers,
changed the nature of the national movements. To the extent that the reformist
elements were eased out of leadership these movements acquired a well-defined
anti-feudal character and became one of the significant factors in the post-war
surge of the national liberation movement. Therefore the national movements are
a crucial reserve for the proletariat of India in its struggle for peoples’
democracy.

The government of the Indian Union, the Congress and the princes want to turn
the national movements back onto the reactionary path, use them in the interests
of individual princely dynasties. In 1948, with this aim in mind one of the
officials of the princely state of Mysore put forward the slogan of a united
Karnataka under the rule of the maharaja of Mysore. In the spring of 1949, the
princes of Travancore and Cochin united their states under the rule of the
maharaja of Travancore.

However, these measures draw protests of the democratic forces participating
in the movement. After 1949 there were mass demonstrations in Kerala against
intensification of the power of the princes. The demonstration held on 1 June
put forward the following demand: ‘Death to the princely regimes from Kashmir
to Cape Comorin!’, ‘Confiscation without compensation of the property of the
princes, their ministers and cronies!’, ‘Criminal cases against the
officials suppressing the democratic movement’ and ‘Creation of national
provinces and creation of a unified democratic Kerala in democratic India’.19

The National Question in Pakistan

The national question in Pakistan has no lesser importance than in the Indian
union. Already during the creation of Pakistan a sharp contradiction emerged
between the Muslim League and the other political organizations of the Afghans on
the question of inclusion of the Afghan territories of India. As it was
mentioned above, the Red Shirts and its allied organizations were against the
inclusion of their territories in Pakistan and demanded the creation of an
independent Pathan state – Pushtunistan or Pathanistan – out of the Afghan
territories of India.

Consequently the Afghan organizations boycotted the referendum held in 1947
on the question of inclusion of the territories of the North West border
province in Pakistan, as the British government refused to include in the list
of questions also the question of creation of Pathanistan. The demand for an
independent Afghan state was popular in the border strip inhabited by the tribes
of Vazirs, the Afridi and others. In spite of all the manoeuvering of the
British government and the Muslim League and subsequently the government of
Pakistan, the movement for the creation of Pathanistan did not stop even after
the formation of new dominions. This movement got overt support from the
government of Afghanistan, which protested particularly strongly against the
inclusion of the border tribes in Pakistan. There are no doubts that the
movement of the Pathans was partly used by the British and American imperialists
for forcing the Pakistan government to give its permission for the
Anglo-American army to control the strip inhabited by border tribes. But this
movement in the main was a peoples movement directed against both the British
plan of partitioning India as well as against Pakistan as a stooge of the
British.

The Anti-British movement in the North-Western Frontier Province and in the
Afghan princely states under Indian jurisdiction and particularly in the strip
of the so-called independent tribes never stopped since the time of their
inclusion in the British Indian Empire. Independence from British domination was
always the end, though maybe one not always clearly recognized, aim of the
struggle of the Afghans of India. In 1919, during the Afghan war for
independence against the British, sympathy for Afghanistan swelled among the
Afghans of India, but after the formation in 1929 of a reactionary regime in
Afghanistan that was looking for accord with the British imperialists, the
Afghans of India began to look for other allies in their struggle against
colonial oppression. Specifically, the anti-British course of the national
movement of the Afghans of India, and not sympathy for Indian bourgeois
nationalism or, more so, for Gandhism, explains the relations between the Afghan
national movement and the National Congress.

Only the top layer among the leadership of the Red Shirts, mainly the
landlords – Abdul Ghafoor Khan, Khan Sahib and others were genuine
Congressists and followers of Gandhi. The major part of Red Shirts who followed
them had very little in common with the National Congress and even less with
Gandhism. These were Afghan peasants aspiring for freedom from the British and
allying with the National Congress only because the latter declared full
independence of India as its final goal.

The Muslim League, always closely linked to the British government, for this
very reason was never popular among such fanatical Muslims as the Indian
Afghans-Pathans. And when the question of inclusion of the Afghan territories of
India into Pakistan surfaced, the majority of the Afghans came out against it.

A party with Abdul Ghaffar Khan as its leader was set up in Pakistan, which
declared it goal as transformation of Pakistan into a federation of ‘socialist
republics’. This programme was clearly pure demagogy. Abdul Ghaffar Khan never
had anything in common with socialism. However, he continued the struggle
against the government of Pakistan and soon he and his followers – the Afghan
nationalists – were thrown in jail. Even after this the movement for
Pathanistan carried on, but as a result of the repression the centre of the
movement shifted to the strip of land of the border tribes specially Vaziristan.
The well-known Fakir Ipi actively worked for the creation of Pathanistan. In
1951 the Pathan problem remained one of the serious problems in Pakistan.

In 1948 in Pakistan the Sindh problem surfaced. The city of Karachi was made
the temporary capital of Pakistan, and later the decision was taken to make it
the permanent capital. Lahore the largest city of Pakistan and the historical
centre of Punjab suffered greatly during the riots in August-September 1947 and
was a very volatile place. Declaration of Karachi as the capital city of
Pakistan and its separation from the province of Sindh into an autonomous
administrative unit drew the anger of the population of Sindh as the Sindhis
considered Karachi as their national capital. The Sindhis were always very
sensitive to all sorts of projects to include Sindh in Punjab because they
considered that such a move will be detrimental to their national aspiration and
will put them in a position of dependency on the Punjabis.

In Pakistan the Sindhis are not very influential and among their leadership
either the Muslim migrants from the Indian Union or the Punjabis dominate. The
working masses of Sindh are not well organized, the class of workers is
miniscule, and the peasantry is backward and oppressed by the feudal landlords
who do not want any conflict with the government of Pakistan. The merchant
bourgeoisie of Sindh, mainly Hindus, is afraid of raising its voice though
earlier it had strongly opposed the integration of Sindh into Punjab.

The Bengal problem has great importance for Pakistan. The Bengalis
constitute more than half the population of Pakistan. They are the most advanced of
the nationalities of Pakistan. The Bengalis of East Pakistan have no links,
neither economic nor cultural, with West Pakistan. That is why the government of
Pakistan wanted to bind Bengal to Pakistan by introducing in Pakistan, including
Bengal, Urdu as the single state language and by escalating pan-Islamic
propaganda. A common religion and a common language, according to the government
of Pakistan, should have been able to unite East Bengal with West Pakistan. But
the reactionary endeavour at assimilation through forcing an alien language on
the population failed. Already in Jinnah’s lifetime, in the beginning of 1948,
the decision of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to declare Urdu as the
mandatory state language of all of Pakistan resulted in serious disturbances in
Dhaka amongst the government employees and specially the students. They demanded
that Bengali be the state language in East Pakistan, that the teaching in
universities and official work in state and provincial departments be conducted
in Bengali etc.20

Demonstrations and protest meetings were held and there were even clashes
with the police against the policy of forcing Urdu as the mandatory state
language on the Bengalis. These disturbances forced Jinnah to go to East Bengal
and talk to the students to convince them to accept Urdu as the language of all
of Pakistan. In doing so, Jinnah declared that this would not be to the
detriment of the Bengali language that would be considered as the official
language of the province.

The Bengal problem was not limited only to the issue of language. In March
1949, the representatives of East Bengal in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan
during the discussions on the budget strongly opposed the policy of the central
government of Pakistan which declared that it views East Bengal only as place from
where it can extract resources but is not interested in its development.

The Bengali national development that was artificially weakened by incitement
of Hindu-Muslim pogroms over a period of 40 years, is again beginning to gain
momentum both in the West as well as in the East Pakistani Bengal. The
intensification of the national and peasants’ movement in Bengal can explain
the provocation of Hindu-Muslim pogroms in both parts in February 1950. The
ruling groups of the Indian Union and Pakistan, following the example set by
their British mentor, are trying to drown the peoples’ movement of the
Bengalis in blood.

The ruling grouping of Pakistan is trying to counter the demands for autonomy
of the national provinces as well as the liberation movement of the Pathans and
the Bengalis with the propaganda of pan-Islamism and the Shariat, the unity of
all Muslims and forcing of Urdu as the state language of all of Pakistan.
However, if the pan-Islamic propaganda still makes some impact among the
nationalities of Pakistan, then the attempt to make Urdu as the state language
of all of Pakistan only strengthens the national movement.

The absence of cultural and economic links between East Bengal and West
Pakistan makes Pakistan an extremely unstable state. This situation is
extensively exploited by British imperialism. However, the progression of the
national-liberation movement in South-East Asia, particularly in Pakistan’s
neighbour Burma, may become a signal for the intensification of the
national-liberation peoples’ movement in Bengal.

Therefore, both in the Indian Union and Pakistan after the partition of India
the national question has become one of the most crucial questions of political life.

An examination of the national movement that is gaining momentum and
increasing in scale both in the Indian Union as well as in Pakistan allows us to
reach the following conclusions:

The national movement is growing unevenly. In the territories of the Marathis,
Malayali and particularly in Andhra wide sections of the working people are
participating in the movement and it has taken on very strong proportions. This
movement is a bit weaker in Bengal, Karnataka, and in Tamilnad; it is even
weaker in Gujarat. Therefore, the movement is most active in regions where the
remnants of feudal relations in the countryside are greater but where capitalism
is on the rise at the same time.

The experience of India also demonstrates that fully and almost fully formed
nations with a developed national movement having well-defined national demands
do not always have their own strong national bourgeoisie. Precisely the national movement assumes the most
active forms among peoples, like the Telugu and
the Marathi, whose national bourgeoisie is weak and has not been able to link up
economically or politically with the British imperialists. Consequently, the
competition between the bourgeoisies of various nations in the national movement
in the period of the general crisis of capitalism plays a secondary role and the
national movement is an expression of the struggle of the masses of workers, the
peasantry and the petty bourgeois layers of the towns against the oppression of
foreign imperialists, feudal landlords and the dominant monopolistic bourgeoisie
in India. In 1925, J.V. Stalin in response to Semich’s article on the national
question in Yugoslavia wrote:

The essence of the national question today lies in the struggle that the
masses of the people of the colonies and dependent nationalities are waging
against financial exploitation, against the political enslavement and cultural
effacement of those colonies and nationalities by the imperialist bourgeoisie
of the ruling nationality. What significance can the competitive struggle
between the bourgeoisies of different nationalities have when the national
question is presented in that way? Certainly not decisive significance, and,
in certain cases, not even important significance. It is quite evident that
the main point here is not that the bourgeoisie of one nationality is beating,
or may beat, the bourgeoisie of another nationality in the competitive
struggle, but that the imperialist group of the ruling nationality is
exploiting and oppressing the bulk of the masses, above all the peasant
masses, of the colonies and dependent nationalities and that, by oppressing
and exploiting them, it is drawing them into the struggle against imperialism,
converting them into allies of the proletarian revolution.21

The struggle of the peasant masses against the feudal vestiges dominant in
the Indian countryside – against feudal land ownership, the rule of the
princes and usurer enslavement – forms the main content of the national
movements of the Indian Union and Pakistan. The national bourgeoisie also
participated in the national movement fairly actively but only in regions where
this movement assumed extremely acute form it was not the motive force.

It is in this light that the role of such national organizations as Andhra
Mahasabha, Maharashtra Conference and others must be assessed. These
organisations are an important ally of the proletariat in a democratic
revolution. They mainly consist of peasants, the democratic layer of
intellectuals and the urban poor, but, in them, there are also representatives
of the top layer of tenants and the national bourgeoisie. In this light, these
organisations must not be equated with peasants’ unions, workers’ unions
etc., that are more homogenous regarding their class content than the above-mentioned organisations. These organisations while fighting against the national
policy of the central government of the Indian Union and Pakistan play a certain
progressive role and even, as in Telengana, participated actively in the peasant
uprising. But under increasing repression of the reactionary forces they can
always be splintered and the bourgeois-kulak section of the leadership can
betray the movement.

The reactionary national policy of the governments of India and Pakistan is a
result of the fact that they are governments of landlords, princes and large
capitalists that are put on the leash by British imperialism.

Comrade Stalin wrote in 1917 about the reasons of national oppression in
Russia:

This is to be explained chiefly by the fact that, owing to its very
position, the landed aristocracy is (cannot but be!) the most determined and
implacable foe of all liberty, national liberty included; that liberty in
general, and national liberty in particular, undermines (cannot but
undermine!) the very foundations of the political rule of the landed
aristocracy.

Thus the way to put an end to national oppression and to create the actual
conditions necessary for national liberty is to drive the feudal aristocracy
from the political stage, to wrest the power from its hands.22

The landlords, princes and the monopolistic bourgeoisie of India and the
British and American imperialists are the carriers of national oppression. This
ensures the important role of the national movements in the struggle for
genuinely independent and democratic India and Pakistan.

The national and the peasants movements in India and Pakistan confirms the
fact that the revolutionary potential of the national movement in these
countries has not been totally eliminated and that it can become a strong ally
of the proletariat in the struggle for people’s democracy. Speaking about the
tasks of the revolution in China, J.V. Stalin, basing himself on the tactical
principles of Leninism, wrote:

I have in mind such tactical principles of Leninism as:

a) the principle that the nationally peculiar and nationally specific
features in each separate country must unfailingly be taken into account by
the Comintern when drawing up guiding directives for the working-class
movement of the country concerned;

b) the principle that the Communist Party of each country must unfailingly
avail itself of even the smallest opportunity of gaining a mass ally for the
proletariat, even if a temporary, vacillating, unstable and unreliable ally;

c) the principle that unfailing regard must be paid to the truth that
propaganda and agitation alone are not enough for the political education of
the vast masses, that what is required for that is the political experience of
the masses themselves.23

These tasks, put up by
comrade Stalin are fully applicable for India and Pakistan.

Appendix

From: The Memorandum of the Communist Party of India to the
British Cabinet Mission

…

4. Constituent Assembly:

It is the right of the Indian people to frame their own constitution, and it
is in the Indian people alone that full sovereignty is vested.

The Constitution-making body envisaged by the British Government is
undemocratic, as it will be formed by election of delegates by the members of
the Provincial Assemblies, on the basis of indirect election. The existing
Provisional Assemblies based on a narrow franchise keep the vast majority of the
people out of power.

The Provisional Government, shall, therefore, convene the Constituent
Assembly on the basis of adult franchise and of the recognition of the right of
self-determination for provinces, reconstituted as new national units (as
explained below).

Self-Determination

The acute differences between the Congress and the League on the issue of
Constituent Assembly can only be settled by the just application of the
principle of self-determination.

We suggest that the Provisional Government should be charged with the task of
setting up a Boundaries Commission to redraw the boundaries on the basis of
natural ancient homelands of every people, so that demarcated provinces become,
as far as possible, linguistically and culturally homogeneous national units,
e.g., Sind , Pathanland, Western Punjab.* The people of each such unit should
have the unfettered right of self-determination, i.e., the right to decide
freely whether they will join the Indian Union or form a separate sovereign
state or another Indian Union.

The Communist Party stands for a free, voluntary, democratic Indian Union, in
a common brotherhood to defend the freedom and solve the problems of poverty
which require the co-operation of all. It is only on the basis of the
application of the principle of self-determination, as indicated above, that the
Indian unity can be preserved.

* The following are the national units that will come into existence after
demarcation of the boundaries, as suggested above, and after the dissolution of
the Indian states, as contemplated under Section 6: Tamilnad, Andhradesha,
Kerala, Karnatak, Maharashtra, Gujerat, Rajasthan, Sind, Baluchistan, Pathanland,
Kashmir, Western Punjab, Central Punjab, Hindustan, Bihar, Assam, Bengal, Orissa.

Indian States

The Indian people are determined to put an end to the Princes’s autocracy
which holds sway over one-third of India. Indian freedom and Indian democracy
will have no meaning – in fact, they will be constantly endangered – if
one-third of India is allowed to remain under the yoke of these medieval
autocrats. The Princes of the British Government; they have been in the past,
and are even today, maintained by British bayonets as a useful prop to British
rule. India regards the so-called treaties and obligations of the British
Government as merely a conspiracy against Indian democracy. There should be,
therefore, no question of inviting the Princes to share power in the Interim
Government or of allowing them any share in determining the decisions of the
Constituent Assembly.

The peoples of the Indian States should, therefore, have the same rights and
franchise as the rest of the Indian people. The people of each should have the
full right to decide through a freely elected Constituent Assembly whether they
should join the Indian Union as a separate province or join any particular
reconstituted province, inhabited by people of the same nationality…

Conclusion

The Communist Party is of the opinion that only if the British Government
proceeds along the lines laid down in this Memorandum, will it be able to
achieve a stable, democratic settlement between the Indian people and the
British people on the basis of equality – thus solving one of the knottiest
problems of world security and peace among peoples.

Any attempt, however, to exploit the differences among the Indian people, to
impose an arbitrary partition, and to retain the Princes in order to perpetuate
British domination, will be resisted by the Indian people with all the strength
at their command.